Courage

In the story of the Wizard of Oz, the Cowardly Lion famously goes with Dorothy to the Emerald City looking for courage.  After all, he was frightened of everything.  Fear is a natural reaction to something new or to unexpected changes.  But, we cannot let fear rule our lives.  Courage is the ability to face down those fears and challenge oneself to be better today than we were yesterday.  Courage requires us to step out of our comfort zones and stretch ourselves to be more than we thought was possible.  While the Cowardly Lion is a great example from the movies, we see examples of courage everyday in our own lives.  The single mother working two jobs to put food on the table for her kids shows us courage.  The family dealing with heartache and loss, but they still find a way to love others show us courage.  Our kids can show us courage each day as well.  They find a new friend to sit with at lunch.  They work and work and work until they get the problem right.  They play a different position in their favorite sport.  I am trying something new today.  I've never had a blog before.  As we go through each week, my hope is to share a little of some of the great things going on here at Pine Tree Middle School.  I welcome feedback and encouragement as we go along with this new endeavor.  Thank you for allowing your students to be with us.  They are a joy and a blessing each day.  

Go Forward In Victory,

Mr. White  

Popular posts from this blog

Hope

Hope.  We use this word a lot.  I hope I get that new job.  I hope I do well on this test.  I hope I make a lot of money one day.  The problem with this type of hope is that it is passive.  We see this so many times with our students.  They want so many things, they hope for so many things.  They hope to play in the NFL.  They hope to be a doctor or a lawyer.  They hope to be a Youtube star.  While hope is vitally important for our students, it is the action associated with that hope that is key to success.  We want our students to have hope.  In fact, I would argue, that this foundation is necessary for any success for our students.  They have to have a goal.  They have to have a dream.  That hope in a bright future is what is necessary so when the work gets hard, it is that hope that will sustain them.  But then we have to put in the work.  We talked with students this week about two things: respect and hard work.  The ability to work hard, no matter what we do in life, is important
Read more

Patience

No one wants to talk about patience.  We don't have time for that.  In our fast paced, highly competitive world, patience is a character trait of the weak.  If we want to win we have to go, go, go!!  We are always looking towards the next thing.  While keeping our eyes forward is important, the fast paced hustle and bustle can cause us to miss the moment. I read an article a couple of years ago about anxiety.  The article compared anxiety levels in teenagers today.  The study stated that the average teenager today carries the same level of anxiety as a mental patient from the 1950s.  This statistic blew my mind.  As I examined why this was true and how I could help, I realized how this world we have created adds so much stress into our lives that the ability to find peace is almost non existent.  We work 40 hours a week.  But then when we get home we answer emails from the boss or text messages from a coworker.  We turn on the news.  We see war, famine, drought, devastation.  We sc
Read more